A Visit
by elienta
Summary: Kenshins pays a visit to Tomoe's grave, and Seijuuro accompanies him. Written in response to the TFME pov fanfic challenge.


**Note:** This was originally my submission to the TFME pov fanfic challenge, but I've touched it  
up a bit since then. This is taken from volume 18 of the manga, where Kenshin visits Tomoe's grave and Seijuuro  
joins him there (after the battle with Shishio, close to the end of the Kyoto Arc). The idea that  
Seijuuro knew of Enishi's arrival before Kenshin did was inspired by fujifunmum from the RKDreams  
forums.

For reference, white chrysanthemums are traditionally a symbol of death in Japanese culture, and  
if someone buys white chrysanthemums it's safe to assume that the person will be visiting a grave.

Oh, yeah, disclaimer: I own not Rurouni Kenshin. But I did buy the entire manga series. A dutiful fan am I.

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"Some white chrysanthemums, please."

The pleasant-faced young woman smiled sympathetically as she untangled a handful of stems  
from the bucket of pale, fully-blown blossoms. "Just a moment, sir." She shook the water off of  
the flowers before carefully wrapping them in a fold of paper. Then she hesitated. "We... we sell  
incense too, sir."

Kenshin smiled at the girl's thoughtfulness. "A bundle then, please. _Domo arigato._"

Kenshin placed the short fragrant sticks at the bottom of the wooden bucket, next to the small  
pot of sake, then tucked the flowers in. "How much?"

"100 yen, sir." The coins clinked into her hand. "_Arigato_. Have a nice day."

He shifted his grasp on the wooden handle as he wove his way through the bustling afternoon  
streets of Kyoto. The mingled scent of burnt pine and chrysanthemums wafted faintly from his  
bucket, a subtle, bittersweet reproach. _How ironic,_ he mused. _I never had the chance to buy her  
flowers or perfume when she lived. Yet she always had the same scent about her..._

The day was hot, with a hint of humidity in the air. He was acutely aware of the bandage on his  
left cheek, the dampness beneath the sticky patch an unpleasant sensation on  
his skin. His scar almost seemed to prickle with the heat. Or perhaps it was his imagination.  
Walking through the eerily familiar streets of Kyoto always awakened in him sensations that he  
had long since buried, memories he would have given anything to forget.

"Ten years," he murmured to himself. "The streets have changed..."

Changed indeed. He glanced into alleys he remembered all too well; shadowy corners where  
he had spilled blood and caused havoc, all in the name of a new age - a new age that had  
seemed so distant, but now that new age was _here_, around him, and it was that time of chaos  
that seemed little more than a distant memory, forgotten to all but a few. Idly he wondered if  
Saitou ever felt the same way when he walked the streets of Kyoto. The Wolf of Mibu didn't  
seem the type to dwell much on the past. _Perhaps he is wise_.

As he walked, he found himself wondering for the hundredth time whether he should have asked  
Kaoru to accompany him. She had been sleeping when he had made ready to go - he had  
peeked into her room to find her slumbering deeply, her lips slightly parted, oblivious to the  
world. For a long moment he had been tempted to wake her. The thought of her coming with him  
to this place was vaguely disturbing, almost frightening. Kaoru most likely knew he kept secrets  
from her... secrets of a past she had declared unimportant. But _this_ secret... ah, now what would  
her reaction be to the biggest secret of his life, the burden he had been unable to put down for  
over a decade? And yet, he desperately wanted to share it with her; to confess to her his past;  
perhaps even to be absolved. It was selfish of him, but a part of him desired it more than  
anything he had ever wished for. The voice of prudence, however, had prevailed - and here he was  
now...alone.

_Perhaps...next time._

With a start he realized he had arrived at his destination. His pace slowed now, leaving the  
main road and entering into a walled closure, filled with pillars inscribed with unknown  
names. It had been a decade since he had last come here, and yet his steps led him without  
hesitation to the small, worn stone marker nestled in a patch of long uncut grass.

Almost involuntarily his hand reached up and tore away the patch concealing his scar. There  
was no need to conceal who or what he was here. _She always knew, and loved me even so.  
_The wind kissed his cheek, cooling the dampness as he stood still, gazing upon the long  
untended grave.

"Ten years..." he said aloud. "But little has changed here."

As the red-haired kenkaku stood unmoving in front of the mound, another presence entered the  
otherwise empty graveyard. His steps moved silently against the pavement; the only sound to  
announce the intruder was the wind that briskly flapped his long, white cape against his legs.  
Kenshin moved not, yet something told the newcomer that the rurouni was well aware he was  
no longer alone.

Seijuuro paused a few feet behind his pupil. "Is that ....her grave?"

Kenshin's fingers touched his scar in an uncharacteristic gesture, feeling the contours of the  
cruel imprint on his cheek. "..._Hai._" Seijuuro's appearance was the last thing he would have  
expected, but somehow he wasn't surprised. Perhaps he was even grateful for the presence  
of his mentor, who stood behind him in an unusual fit of silence.

His shishou watched impassively as his "baka deshi" set down the bucket and knelt in front  
of the grave. Seijuuro made no move to help him as he began to cut away the overgrown grass  
and weeds from around the marker, but behind his blank face he fetl vaguely disturbed.  
The fact that his wayward pupil had troubled himself to visit this place after avoiding it for the  
past ten years was significant... but what exactly did it signify? What sort of thoughts had  
occurred to Kenshin after his fight with Shishio?

_He is ready to face a past he has been running away from,_ Seijuuro mused. At least, that  
was what he hoped. _Or is it something else? Has his brush with death somehow revived his  
guilt over her death? Or does he suddenly miss her, the woman he loved a lifetime ago?_ He  
thought of the girl, Kamiya Kaoru, who had followed Kenshin all the way from Tokyo to Kyoto,  
who had somehow given Kenshin enough reason to live despite all that had happened. _Surely  
...not that._

Kenshin had finished trimming the grass, and was now lighting a match to the bundle of  
incense he had planted next to the pillar. The sticks caught the flame for a brief moment,  
flaring brightly before the fire settled into a steady, red glow that patiently began to eat away at  
the fragrant column. Translucent grey smoke wafted into the air and curled itself into vague  
patterns before dispersing.

_The smell of death_, Seijuuro found himself thinking on a rather morbid note. Kenshin had his  
back turned towards his mentor as he laid the flowers before the grave, but Seijuuro didn't  
have to see his pupil's face to know his emotions. There was no heaviness in Kenshin's  
movements; he moved slowly, surely, respectfully. Seijuuro permitted himself a half-smile  
behind his pupil's back. Perhaps his foolish pupil had learned a little wisdom, after all. Or  
perhaps not. _He always seems to take pleasure in wallowing in angst and guilt._ Old habits died  
hard. If they ever did.

"The first visit in ten years." Seijuuro broke the silence as Kenshin splashed the pot of sake  
over the stone. The pungent smell briefly smothered the smell of incense. "You have never  
looked back all these years," he continued. "What brings you here now?"

Without an answer, Kenshin knelt in the grass, and his hands met in prayer. Seijuuro arched  
a brow, but maintained his silence in an uncharacteristic show of respect for his pupil.  
Kenshin bent his red head, but whatever prayers he uttered, he kept them in his heart, and  
Seijuuro could only imagine what was going through the rurouni's head.

_Should I tell him, after all?_ Seijuuro felt, for the first time in gods only knew how long, the pangs  
of indecision. Kenshin had confronted - and defeated - a dangerous enemy, but the enemy  
that currently occupied Seijuuro's thoughts was infinitely more dangerous; more so because  
he was linked with the past Kenshin had been running from these past ten years... linked,  
specifically, to the dead woman lying in the grave at his feet, the woman that had been both  
Kenshin's salvation and damnation. _The inner enemy. Will he be able to defeat _that_?_

_ You can't watch over him forever, _the master of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu told himself sternly.   
_You've taught him the ougi and even protected his companions while he was busy saving  
Japan. Isn't that enough, now? He must learn to stand by himself. _The world saw Himura  
Kenshin as a ruthless killer, a skilled assassin; yet whenever Seijuuro looked at the infamous  
_Hitokiri Battousai_ he saw a child named Shinta, with hands raw from digging graves for   
slavers and slaves alike. Seijuuro shook his head ruefully. _Gods, I'm turning into a mother hen._

Kenshin rose to his feet, but still remained with his back to his shishou. The question still  
hung in the air, unanswered: _What brings you here now?_ Kenshin found himself struggling to  
form an articulate answer to the deceptively simple question, to give voice to the thoughts  
that had been filling his mind these past few days.

"After the new era began..." He spoke softly, without turning around. "I traveled to almost  
every corner of Japan. But never here." He paused. _Perhaps... as far from here as I could go.  
"_I knew too many people in Kyoto. And...I wanted to avoid becoming involved in fights that I  
I wanted no part in."

"Is that all?" Seijuuro demanded from behind, his voice flat.

_He knows me too well,_ Kenshin thought wryly. "It reminded me of what I was  
during my time here." He closed his eyes briefly. "The _Hitokiri Battousai..._ and the people  
whose lives I took with my own hands as such..." _The wife I killed with my own hands. Ah,  
Tomoe... am I wrong to ask for forgiveness?_ The question of forgiveness had never entered  
his mind before. For ten years he had tried to forget, and at the same time he lashed himself with  
the pain of her memory: penance for his sins. "The memories... kept me away from this city."  
_The city I stained with blood, for the sake of a new era._ "Yet..."

He paused, his eyes resting on the bundle of pale blossoms at his feet - pure white and  
austerely beautiful... much like the image of Tomoe he remembered. The events of the  
past month filled his thoughts, all twisted and crowded but forming a seamless chain in  
his memory, a chain where despair and revelation and hope were all intertwined. And upper-  
most among the images was one of a young girl with a lovely face and a strong spirit, a girl  
who had given him the strength to persevere when he had been ready to let it all go.

_ I have chosen life...and to live, I must face my past. Confront it, and hope that ... even I  
can be forgiven..._

Kenshin turned at last to face Seijuuro, his purple eyes meeting his shishou's gaze with a  
small but sincere smile. "Yet somehow... I have found the courage to lay down flowers upon  
this grave at last."

Seijuuro blinked once at his pupil's words, then suddenly smiled himself - an abrupt smirk  
that lasted for a heartbeat, yet Kenshin thought he detected something close to relief in his  
shishou's expression before he whirled away.

"Then haul that scrawny ass of yours back to Tokyo, _baka deshi_," he snorted. "You can be  
sure that I won't be around to save it, next time you get yourself involved in 'fights you want  
no part in.'" _Next time, though, you will not need me._ Seijuuro allowed himself a private smile  
as he left his pupil. _Perhaps you haven't quite learned wisdom...but you have taken the first  
step. You will do well, baka deshi._

Kenshin's own smile softened as his mentor strode from the graveyard, and despite  
the harsh words he inclined his head respectfully in the direction of Seijuuro's retreating back. As he made  
to leave the graveyard, Kenshin turned for a parting look at the grave, now neatly trimmed and  
adorned - for the first time in ten years. "I'll be back next year," he said gently, his gaze  
lingering on the bunch of flowers as he turned away, heading back to the Akabeko - where Kaoru  
was waiting for him.


End file.
